Dan Walker To Host IOG Awards

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Dan Walker To Host IOG Awards: Tickets are now available for this year’s Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) Industry Awards, so book now to secure your place at the industry’s biggest celebratory event –  hosted by the BBC’s Dan Walker on Wednesday October 30 at The Vox, located in Resorts World at the Birmingham NEC, on the evening of the first day of the SALTEX exhibition.

The awards – now in their 11th year – have continually grown in status for acknowledging the achievements of volunteer and professional grounds teams, as well as community clubs and national stadia. They recognise the passion, dedication and challenges faced by grounds staff at clubs of every size and from all corners of the UK.

Dan Walker To Host IOG Awards

BBC sports presenter and BBC Breakfast anchor Dan Walker will bring a new dimension to this year’s event as the 20 award categories are presented.

He currently hosts BBC One’s Award-winning Football Focus and regularly presents Match of the Day. He has also covered Wimbledon, The Grand National, Royal Ascot, The Derby and the Six Nations, as well as continuing to work on domestic, European and international football. He has also co-hosted Open golf coverage for the last 10 years and was an integral part of the BBC’s Olympic broadcasting team for both London 2012 and Rio 2016.

To secure your seat – which cost £95 each for IOG members and £190 each for non-members – please contact the IOG by email (awards@iog.org) or call 01908 312 511 where you can also gain details of how to become an IOG member.

It’s not too late to nominate an individual or team for a 2019 Award. Visit: www.iog.org/awards and click the nominate button. This year’s categories include:

  • IOG Toro Most Promising Sports Turf Student 
  • IOG Rigby Taylor/Top Green Young Grounds Person
  • IOG Volunteer Sports Grounds Team/Individual
  • IOG NGB Community/Grassroots Sports Club Grounds Team/Individual 
  • IOG AMS Robotics Public Sector Sports Grounds Team 
  • IOG Bowling Grounds Team/Individual
  • IOG SCH Supplies Best Managed Artificial Surface 
  • IOG Ransomes Environmental and Ecology Strategy 
  • IOG Headland Amenity Professional Cricket Grounds Team

  • IOG Cub Cadet Infinicut Professional Tennis Courts Grounds Team
  • IOG John Deere Professional Horse Racing Grounds Team
  • IOG Professional Rugby Football League Grounds Team
  • IOG Compo Expert Professional Rugby Football Union Grounds Team
  • IOG Professional Football Grounds Team
    For English Leagues 1 & 2, National League, National League North/South, Scottish Championship & Leagues 1 & 2, Ireland & Wales Professional Leagues.
  • IOG SGL Professional Football Grounds Team 

For Premier League, Championship and Scottish Premier League.

  • IOG Redexim Charterhouse/Kubota University/College Grounds Team 
  • IOG Growth Products Independent School Grounds Team
  • IOG SISGrass International Award
  • IOG Grassmaster Outstanding Achievement Award.

There is one additional award for which nominations are not sought: the IOG Ransomes/DLF Alex R Millar Award – to the person chosen as the outstanding winner across all award categories.

The NGB Awards are sponsored by the AELTC (All England Lawn Tennis Club), ECB (the England and Wales Cricket Board), The FA (Football Association), the LTA (Lawn Tennis Association), the Premier League,  the RFU (Rugby Football Union) and the RFL (Rugby Football League)

For information on how to sponsor an award, please contact Karen Maxwell on 07866 736 597 or email: kmaxwell@iog.org

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Bernhard Launch Training Academy

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Bernhard Launch Training Academy: 11th June 2019 sees the launch of the Bernhard Academy at the company’s factory facilities in Haverhill, Suffolk.

The Bernhard Academy is set to become a hub of knowledge for the turf industry and a centre promoting learning and development across the globe. In addition to promoting education to UK turf specialists, the Academy will develop a training programme for Bernhard’s distributors from across the US, Asia and Europe to help enhance their knowledge of turf health solutions.

Bernhard Launch Training Academy

Working in partnership with Mow-Sure Training Ltd, the Academy aims to train customers, technicians and distributors’ sales team to promote turf health, cutting precision and superior playability and eventually to get the most out of Bernhard’s product portfolio.

The accredited training will be delivered in several formats at the purpose-built facility at Haverhill, hands-on training, theory or via online learning. A wide range of modular and short courses is planned, with the two signature courses being a Turf Technician Course and a Turf Manager’s Course.

Bernhard Launch Training Academy

For more information on the various types of training and education support offered by Bernhard and Company, visit: Bernhard.co.uk

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Dennis & SISIS Seminar Success

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Dennis & SISIS Seminar Success: Dennis & SISIS have completed another successful season of  seminars, with the insightful events welcoming over 500 attendees at various venues throughout the UK.

Dennis & SISIS have, for a number of years, hosted free-to-attend educational seminars designed to educate groundstaff on a variety of topics associated with sports turf maintenance. High quality speakers and interesting subjects have ensured these seminars have a reputation as ‘must-attend’ events with groundstaff travelling considerable distances to be in attendance.

Dennis & SISIS Seminar Success

While the seminars continue to go from strength to strength, Dennis and SISIS continue to evolve the seminars with the people of the industry in mind, and this year, the British manufacturers launched a new multi-sport groundcare seminar which featured a number of high quality speakers discussing subjects such as renovations, sports-turf construction, drainage, winter sports pitches and the future of groundcare maintenance.

This new event, which took place at St. Albans School, Woollam Trust Playing Fields, saw an incredible 220 delegates in attendance and attracted grounds staff from all over the UK including volunteers and professionals representing schools, sports clubs, local authorities and contractors.

Nick Lockhart, cricket professional and head of grounds and gardens at Felsted School in Essex, attended the event and claimed that the Dennis and SISIS seminars are essential for anyone who wants to take their sports surfaces to the next level.

“It has been thoroughly enjoyable, informative and thought provoking,” he said. “I would go as far as saying that it is a must-attend event for people in this industry. It has been incredibly interesting listening to all of the speakers who have all raised great points that we can take away with us and put into practice. Speakers aside, the networking opportunities are also important because it gives us a chance to speak to other delegates, find out what they might be doing differently to us and hopefully learn from them too.”

The ever popular Dennis and SISIS bowls seminars, which have been credited for improving the greens at numerous bowls clubs throughout the country, offered tips on topics such as early spring maintenance of bowling greens, grant funding support, and choosing the correct grass seed, chemicals and fertilizers.

Kev Brazier, a contract greenkeeper working in partnership with Harpenden Bowls Club, attended the seminar at the Herts Bowling Club in Watford and felt that it was a great opportunity to enhance his greenkeeping knowledge.

“It was an excellent and really informative seminar,” he said. “The speakers had great knowledge and they presented it in a way in which everyone could understand. It was great for networking and there was a broad range of subjects. They were all incredibly relevant and I took a lot away from seminar.”

As well as hosting their own events, Dennis and SISIS are committed to supporting sports turf education wherever possible and this year they also offered their expertise at eight Rugby Football Union (RFU) Pitch Maintenance seminars.

Further information about the range of bowls maintenance products available can be found by visiting www.dennisuk.com / www.sisis.com.

For more news, reviews and insightful views, you can follow Dennis on Twitter and Instagram @DennisMowers and SISIS @SISISMachinery. You can like the Facebook page – www.facebook.com/DennisMowersUK and www.facebook.com/SISISMachinery. You can also view the latest Dennis videos by visiting www.youtube.com/DennisMowers and www.youtube.com/SISISMachinery

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The ClearWater Cup 2019

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The ClearWater Cup 2019: Bishopswood Golf Club was the venue for this year’s CourseCare Cup held recently when the South Coast Greenkeepers played the Wessex Managers.

Bishopswood, a challenging 9 hole par 72 course receives very good reviews and 9 holes is certainly no indication of it being easy! Lee James and his greenkeeping team had ensured that this pleasant course was at its best. With an ideal day weather-wise for play, both teams set off with the Managers keen to prise the trophy away from the Greenkeepers.

The ClearWater Cup 2019

The Managers, captained by Burley’s Jane Harfield, did prevail and enjoyed an emphatic three matches to one win! Congratulations to them and commiserations to the Greenkeepers.

Matthew Mears, General Manager of Acumen’s ClearWater Division presented the ClearWater Cup to Jane Harfield and the day was rounded off by drinks and a meal for all with thanks given to Acumen for their sponsorship for this popular event.

The ClearWater Cup 2019

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Campey Host Educational Tour

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Campey Host Educational Tour: Thirty-eight groundsmen from Denmark and Spain have spent three-days learning from some of the best turf professionals the United Kingdom has to offer on a Campey Turf Care Systems educational tour.

The trip was arranged by Thomas Jorgensen, chairman of the Groundsman Association of Denmark, Campey’s Danish dealer, Havdrup Maskinforretning and Spanish dealer Deltacinco. The emphasis of the tour was to learn from experienced groundsmen while looking at the technology they are using.

Campey Host Educational Tour

Typically, Danish groundsmen operate on lower budgets compared to their UK counterparts, and this was taken into consideration when picking venues with Salford City Reds and Newcastle Under Lyme Football Club both chosen to show that high-quality surfaces can be achieved with a smaller budget.

The 38 strong group also visited leading venues such as Arsenal’s London Colney training centre, Liverpool Football Club, Stoke City Football Club, Tottenham Hotspur’s Enfield Training Ground and the brand-new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium where head of playing surfaces and estates, Darren Baldwin, gave up his time to give the group a tour of the stunning new facility and answer questions from the groundsmen. Thomas thinks everyone on the trip has benefitted from getting to interact with the groundsmen from each club while seeing the pitches they produce.

He said: “I thought the variety of venues we visited was excellent, we saw the top of it all in terms of stadium, but we also experienced some more down-to-earth facilities that we can better relate to, but it is important to experience both on such a trip.

Campey Host Educational Tour

“It is very important to be able to learn from others in the industry who have experiences that we don’t yet have ourselves. The English football pitches are on a different level to Denmark, so the experience is important. However, we must remember that the money is also different in England.

“For me, the experience was absolutely great. We visited Steve Braddock at Arsenal. He is simply fantastic and has tremendous knowledge, he gained great respect throughout our group.”

As well as talks from leading figures in the industry, the group also saw a grassroots renovation in action at Newcastle Under Lyme FC and had the chance to view machines at Campey HQ and have an evening barbecue.

Campey Host Educational Tour

Campey has always focused on providing education to further the knowledge of those in the industry and is delighted to continue their support of groundsmen abroad.

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